YouTube podcasts on both subjects have greatly expanded my understanding of both. I can dive into to any topic, listen to the greatest minds and learn. Just as with Wikipedia, and now GPT, the way that the tech revolution has granted the curious instant access to knowledge is life-changing. No more waiting a week for that documentary on TV, or your next visit to the public library.
Over the past few years, I have dived deep into philosophy of mind, cosmology and theoretical physics; I have learnt much about the great questions that science has yet to answer. These include the nature of consciousness (emergent property of evolution or the fundamental property of the Universe?); dark energy and dark matter (which theoretically make up 95% of the mass-energy content of the Universe, yet we can't physically detect either); the reconciliation of relativity with quantum mechanics (the physics that works at the sub-atomic scale doesn't work at the galactic scale and vice-versa); how life emerged from non-life; and how the Universe is fine-tuned for life to emerge (were the key physical constants just slightly different to how they are, we wouldn't exist).
Science today is far more aware of what it doesn't know compared to the situation a hundred years ago, when physicists believed they were just a few equations away from understanding everything. Science keeps coming up with more questions than answers.
Then there is the paranormal; an entire category of phenomena which are impossible to explain in scientific terms. Precognition, telepathy, psychokinesis or clairvoyance – these have been proven to exist to a remarkably high degree of probability, but science refuses to acknowledge the reality of psi - not because that these phenomena cannot be proved to exist (weakly, it must be said), but that no one has posited a scientifically acceptable model for how they function. [For the doubters, dip into this meta-analysis of research conducted into psi phenomena published in the journal of the American Psychological Association.]
God of the Gaps
If you can't explain it, it must be God. This is the old notion of God of the Gaps, used to fill in areas beyond our understanding with a supernatural explanation.
Philosophically, we can lump together two ways of thinking: physicalism (everything is made of matter; if we can't currently explain everything, one day we will, and that explanation will turn out to be a physicalist one) and idealism (a metaphysical perspective asserting that reality is equivalent to mind, spirit, or consciousness, and that there's a higher ideal form of reality).
I tend toward the latter worldview. Yet among the public intellectuals garnering the largest audiences on YouTube, the physicalists get the clicks. Sean Carroll, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sabine Hossenfelder, Daniel Dennett – they all flatly deny the existence of any deity, sticking doggedly to the material nature of everything, based on empirical evidence and the scientific method. The idealists, on the other hand, tend to be the long tail of YouTube viewer metrics; from flaky woo-woo peddled by New Age mystics all the way up to far more robust constructs of mainstream religious commentators, as well as scientists willing to go right up to the very edges of science.
The latter group would include Dean Radin and Rupert Sheldrake, who stick to the scientific method to deliver experimental proof of the reality of psi phenomena. The idealist group also includes those intellectuals on the cusp of theoretical physics and philosophy of mind, such as Bernard Carr or Bernardo Kastrup, who are openly open about seeing a role for a Cosmic Consciousness in our theory of everything.
Seated between them are scientists who sense that there is something metaphysical going on but whose standing in the academic community won't let them stray too far into woo-woo territory – here I'd place Sir Roger Penrose and Paul Davis. Scientific rigour and complex equations win out over pure intuition.
An intriguing point of view is espoused by Edwin C. May, the former head of the CIA's remote-viewing programme, Stargate Project. Psychic spies, what have you. I've watched several interviews and presentations featuring him, the best of which are on the excellent New Thinking Aloud channel on YouTube with Jeffrey Mishlove. What makes Dr May interesting is the fact that while he absolutely believes in the existence of psi phenomena, pointing to proven successes of Stargate Project in uncovering Soviet secrets, he holds that the explanation for these powers lies entirely in rational, though as yet undiscovered, material explanations. Dr May dismisses supernatural explanations, and claims to be a rational atheist with an interest in phenomena at the edges of scientific knowledge.
So. Another of my big Lenten questions is – how far can the physicalists' position be pushed before it becomes idealism? At what point does a spiritual explanation need to be invoked? And if we do accept a Big-C cosmic consciousness, a Universal mind, an eternal Purpose – can that be ultimately explained in physical terms, or must we forever be left with a cosmic mystery at the heart of existence?? *
"There are more questions than answers,
Pictures in my mind that will not show,
And the more I find out,
The less I know."
Today's version comes from the Emotions on Stax Records, which delved into Reggae stylings more than any other US-based soul label. Big shout out to MJDJ and his unmissable soul/R&B show, Your Sinsouly, live on Friday nights on West Wilts Radio (7-9pm UK, 20:00-22:00 Continent).
* The question mark to the power of the question mark was invented by my brother late last night as a symbol for demanding both an answer and an unanswer of the question simultaneously.
Lent 2023, Day 42
Where did religions come from?
Lent 2023, Day 42
Where did religions come from?
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Lent 2021: Day 42
Actively seeking Understanding
Lent 2020: Day 42
From Zero to One
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